Competition Will Be Good for Canadian Cannabis Consumers

Jodie Giesz-Ramsay, known to many as Jodie Emery, co-owner of Cannabis Culture magazine and its associated businesses based in Vancouver, BC, is mounting an effort to challenge some of the provisions in Canada’s new adult-legalization law, known as The Cannabis Act, which is scheduled to go into effect in July 2018. Specifically, Giesz-Ramsay alleges that tight restrictions on production and distribution in the new law will result in a monopoly over the nascent industry which essentially serves to choke off dispensaries, licensed producers, and mail-order distributors already serving patient and consumer needs in Canada. The Cannabis Act will currently allow Canadian territories and provinces to create their own regulatory structure to oversee production, distribution, and sales.

The group is seeking to intervene in an upcoming case being heard by the Supreme Court of Canada, in order to bring these grievances to the legal system. In its intervention, Cannabis Culture is representing 28 other corporations. The case involves a man who was arrested and charged for transporting too large a quantity of alcohol from one Canadian province to another, and is being watched closely by small and large producers of beer and wine, and multiple business and consumer organizations.

The two provinces embroiled in the case include Ontario, which has stated an intention to make the Liquor Control Board of Ontario the sole provider for adult-use cannabis in that province, and New Brunswick, which announced a new Crown corporation (quasi governmental agency) partnering with private companies Organigram and Canopy Growth for the same purpose.

The Court has yet to decide if it will accept the application for intervention, but there appears to be an openness to discussing its relevance.

“The court has expressed a willingness to revisit issues ‘should a sea change in the legal, political, or social landscape occur,’ Cannabis Culture points out.

“’The legalization of cannabis and the emergence of an entirely new industry are precisely the type of sea change which needs to be heard in this case because of the effects interprovincial trade barriers have on the extant and emergent cannabis industry,’ it says.

“Cannabis Culture is representing 28 other entities that collectively operate about 100 cannabis dispensaries, several of which also operate mail-order distribution models.”

The Canada Supreme Court is scheduled to hold hearings on the case December 5 and 6. The people of Canada support private cannabis retailers. If Canadian courts agree that cannabis should be treated similarly to alcohol, then consumers will have the option of both private and government-connected retailers to choose from.

Photo credit: abdallahh/Flickr (CC BY 2.0) | Remix by Jason Reed

This blog was originally published by Marijuana Politics. It has been posted here with special permission.

Amber Langston board member and deputy director of Show-Me Cannabis is an outspoken advocate for social, economic and environmental justice. Ms. Langston served as the campaign manager for Columbia, Missouri’s two successful municipal cannabis initiatives in 2004 while studying rural sociology at the University of Missouri. Amber has served as an outreach director and international liaison for Students for Sensible Drug Policy in Washington, DC, as field support for Americans for Safe Access in Oakland, CA, and as media liaison for California’s Proposition 19 to tax and regulate cannabis in November 2010.

Related Articles

The number of medical cannabis patients in Canada has grown exponentially since Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was elected in 2015. When Trudeau was elected in October 2015, there were roughly 30,000 medical cannabis patients in Canada. By the end of 2016, that number had quadrupled to almost 130,000 patients. In […]

Colorado voted to legalize cannabis in 2012. Legal adult-use cannabis sales began in January 2014. Since that time Colorado’s industry has flourished, with cannabis industry taxes, licenses, and fees expected to generate well over 200 million dollars in 2017 alone. The figure has risen every year since 2014. Leading up […]

In the eight American states (and D.C.) that allow cannabis possession and consumption for adult use, all of them have a legal age limit of 21 years old. All of the campaigns that brought about legalization campaigned on the slogan of ‘regulate marijuana like alcohol.’ Alcohol has a legal age […]